


the last good scene

by majesdane



Category: Degrassi RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-14
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The only time she ever felt truly close to Deanna was when they weren't being themselves; it was only when they hid behind their characters that the distance between them seemed to disappear. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last good scene

before all this,  
oh, safer and smoother and smaller was my heart.  
\-- Mark Halliday, ' _Before_ '

 

 

Deanna comes to pick them up at the airport.

Adamo spots her first and starts waving frantically. He calls out -- _Deanna_ \-- and Lauren drops the suitcases she was struggling to carry and spins around to see the brunette striding towards them, dressed in jeans and a bright blue t-shirt (with matching flip-flops, of course), a huge grin on her face.

" _Dee_!" Lauren cried out happily, running up to her and throwing her arms around the older girl, almost knocking her to the ground.

Deanna laughs and hugs her back. "I missed you too," she says, still grinning. She looks over Lauren's shoulder and spots Adamo making his way slowly over to them, carry-on bag slung over his shoulder, dragging three suitcases behind him. "Hey Adamo, what's up?"

Adamo shrugs. "Not a whole lot. I've been taking some classes at Toronto University. Nothing major," he adds, setting down the bags next to them. "Just a few classes here and there. I'm not sure what I want to major in yet, anyway."

Deanna releases Lauren from the hug. The blond steps back, brushing a loose strand back behind her ear. "You look good, Deanna," she says, looking Deanna up and down. "I think that LA suits you."

The dark-hair girl shrugs as she helps Lauren and Adamo carry the bags outside to where her car is waiting, running. "I think that it's starting to grow on me. Or I'm growing on it. I don't think you can tell which one is which."

Lauren laughs. "Either way, you look great."

Deanna flushes a bit.

They're relatively quiet on the way back to Deanna's apartment; Adamo and Lauren can't help but stare out the windows, taking in the city. Lauren's been here before, but she can't help but marvel at everything. She looks over at Deanna, who's grinning ridiculously. Lauren thinks that Deanna must find their wonderment endearing, and she can't help but smile at the thought as well. She leans forward, flicks on the radio, poking Deanna as she rolls down her window, elicting a smile and a roll of her eyes.

"God, I love LA already," Lauren remarks, as they tear down the highway in Deanna's little blue Mazda, the windows down and the music blaring.

They reach Deanna's apartment presently. It's a building on the outskirts of the town. They all pile into the elevator, their bags packed in with them. Deanna punches the button for the twelfth floor, leaning back against the wall of the elevator. It's a short ride up; a slight ding announces that they've arrived at their floor. Deanna leads the way down the hall.

"It's not much, but," she says, trailing off as she unlocks her door, and kicks it open the rest of the way.

Lauren surveys her apartment as Marco trails in behind her and Deanna deposits her keys on the kitchen counter. It's small, but not too tiny -- cozy, Lauren thinks, would be the best way to describe it. She has a nice view, though, Lauren thinks, going to the window and gazing outside.

"I like it," she announces, after a moment.

"Glad you approve," Deanna says, flopping down onto the couch. "Oh, um, if you're hungry or whatever, feel free to look in the fridge. I still need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, but I think there's some takeout still left in there and whatnot."

"I hope you don't mind us staying here for a few days," Adamo says, sliding down onto the couch beside her. "We don't want to impose, it's just that our apartment isn't ready for us just yet, and -- "

Deanna holds up a hand, cutting him off. "It's fine," she tells them. "You've explained it all to me already, and honestly, I don't mind you guys crashing here for a bit. It gets a bit lonely, you know, being here all by myself."

"I don't know how you bear it, Dee," Lauren says, sitting down on the other side of Deanna and resting her head on her shoulder. "I don't think I could do it." She sits up a moment later, digging around in her purse for her cell phone.

"I've got to call James," she explains, dialing his number. "He'll want to know that we got here okay."

"Oh, right," Deanna says, in a strange tone. "I forgot about your boyfriend."

\- - - - -

"Adamo wants to go out this weekend," Lauren announces that morning, while they're eating breakfast at Starbucks. "He wants us to come with him."

"Oh?" Deanna bites into her bagel, her eyes scanning the newspaper. "Where does he want to go?"

"A gay club," Lauren says cheerfully.

Deanna chokes on her mouthful of bagel and Lauren has to pat her back until she recovers.

"I'm not going to a _gay club_ ," Deanna whispers furiously to Lauren, flushing.

"Why not?" Lauren stirs her coffee absently. "Lots of straight girls go to gay clubs. It's really not an uncommon thing."

Deanna opens her mouth as if to speak, but instead shuts her mouth abruptly, reaching instead for her container of orange juice and taking a large gulp, turning to a new page in the paper.

"What?" Lauren asks, prompting her.

"Hmm? Nothing," Deanna says, keeping her head down.

Lauren cocks her head, looking at her sideways. "You were going to say something?"

"Oh, um. Nothing."

Lauren sighs and takes a sip of her coffee, dropping the subject. She knows exactly why Deanna's so uncomfortable, though she would never tell Deanna that. It was almost a year and a half ago, when Deanna made her drunken confession to Lauren at a party: _I'm gay_. She'd passed out a little while later, before Lauren could work up the courage to talk to her about it. The next morning she seemed not to remember -- _I didn't do anything to embarrass myself last night, did I?_ \-- and so Lauren chose not to mention it again. She wasn't even sure if Deanna had meant it or not, but there had been something in the way Deanna had said it, a kind of sad, unhappy sort of way that made Lauren pause.

Ironically, Adamo brought the subject up a few days later, when he and Lauren were out with Stacey shopping. Stacey laughed and told him to stop thinking that everyone was gay simply because he was, but Lauren had kept silent, afraid she might say something and accidentally give Deanna away. After all, it was Deanna's secret to tell, not hers, and besides, she would have felt like she'd betrayed their friendship in some way. At the same time, she had to smile, because it was amusing that two people who played gay characters on _Degrassi_ turned out to be gay in real life.

"Anyway," she says blithely, a few minutes later. "You don't have to come or anything. I mean, if you don't want to, that's cool. I'm not going to force you or anything. I just figured you needed a break, that's all."

Deanna smiles weakly. "Thanks, Lauren. But I think I might be busy this weekend anyway, so. I'll give you a call, though, if I have some free time. Maybe we could hang out or something. I don't know, go to a movie."

"Sure, Dee," Lauren says, though she knows the brunette is lying; she won't call.

Lauren is suddenly struck with a strange image, of an egg being tapped against the edge of a counter top. It cracks slowly at first, then suddenly splits open, contents spilling everywhere. She can see the yolk dripping out along the jagged edges, can feel the stickiness on her finger tips, the delicate shell in a dozen small pieces. She thinks that Deanna is the egg, the shell, and that she, Lauren, is the edge that it breaks against and the hand that crushes it to pieces.

\- - - - -

"Let's go out," Lauren says.

"It's a Tuesday," Adamo says from the couch, where he's sprawled out, channel surfing.

"So?"

"So there's nothing to do on a fucking _Tuesday_ ," Adamo tells her, reaching for his can of Diet Pepsi. "Let's just order some takeout -- pizza or Chinese or whatever -- and watch a movie."

Lauren rolls her eyes. "We are so going to waste our two months here in LA if we do things your way."

"So go out," Adamo says, in a slightly irritated tone. "Or call up Deanna and see if she wants to do something."

So Lauren calls Deanna.

"Hey Lauren," Deanna answers.

"You sound out of breath," Lauren remarks. "Is something wrong?"

There's a nervous laugh on the other side. "Uh, no, I was just, um. I was taking a shower and I heard my phone ringing, and I ran out to go get it. You know. I thought that someone else was calling."

"Oh. Who?"

"Hmm?"

Lauren says, "Who did you think was calling?"

"Oh," Deanna says, hesitantly. "Um, no one. Just my parents. Uh, my mom left me a message on my voice mail the other day, and I thought that she was just calling me back. You know my parents; they like to worry about me."

Lauren doesn't believe her, but she drops the subject.

"Anyway," she says. "Are you busy tonight? Because I was thinking of going out somewhere, but Adamo doesn't want to come with because he's too freaking lazy to get up off the couch."

"I can't," Deanna says quickly. "Sorry, but I'm busy with other stuff tonight, Lauren."

There's a knock on Deanna's door; Lauren can hear it through the phone. Deanna curses under her breath, and Lauren can hear a rustle as she shifts the phone from her left hand to her right.

"Lauren? I have to go, sorry. I've, um. Well, I've got a friend coming over later to visit me tonight -- an LA friend," she adds, after a second.

"Oh, well," Lauren says, feeling a little rejected. "I wouldn't want to keep you."

\- - - - -

Michelle never comes over when Lauren is there.

It's a schedule she's become familiar with; she sleeps over at Deanna's apartment on weekends, Michelle comes over during the week. The pattern is the same from week-to-week, but Lauren pretends not to notice, because thinking about it makes her feel like the Other Woman, and that thought in itself makes her uncomfortable. It doesn't help that she doesn't like Michelle very much either. Lauren's only met her once, completely by accident; she and Adamo had been on shopping on a Wednesday night and they'd happened to run into Michelle and Deanna. Deanna had introduced her as a friend, but it was obvious to Lauren that she was more than that. She'd asked Deanna about it that Saturday night, when they were curled up together on the couch together watching TV.

"Who was the girl you were with, a few days ago?"

Deanna yawned. "Who, Michelle? She's just a friend. I met her at a bookstore."

"Deanna."

Deanna gave her a strange look. "What?"

"I know that she's not just your friend, Deanna."

"Shut up, Lauren," Deanna said suddenly, standing up, kicking the blanket away and going over to window, arms crossed. Lauren stared at her for a moment, then got up and went to stand beside her. She looked over at Deanna, surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"Dee, look, I didn't mean -- "

"She's just a fuck-buddy, okay?" Deanna said angrily. Confrontational. Upset.

"Okay, okay," Lauren says, backing off, because Deanna is always so composed, so mature, and Deanna _never_ says 'fuck,' even when she's upset.

"I'm still your friend, you know," Lauren'd told her later, when Deanna left for bed. "This doesn't change anything between us."

"Yeah," Deanna said.

They hadn't spoken at all the next day. Lauren went back to her apartment earlier that afternoon. Deanna didn't object to her leaving like she usually did. Lauren hadn't brought up the argument at all since that day and Deanna hadn't either. Lauren apologized to her on the phone that night, for making her angry, and Deanna apologized to her for her outburst, and that was the last time they'd discussed it. Lauren figured that it was for the best; if Deanna didn't want to talk about Michelle, about whatever their relationship was, then there was really no sense in forcing her to. But the secret was out now, for real, and it scared her a little. Here was real, tangible proof that Deanna was exactly what she'd confessed she was.

Lauren doesn't mean to, but she blames the argument on Michelle. Michelle, with her too-perfect skin, and her hair cut just so, the perfect way to frame her pretty face, and the way she dresses that shows she's far more sophisticated than Lauren could ever be. Lauren hates herself for being jealous, for being so immature, but she can't help but feel as if Michelle is stealing Deanna away from her somehow. She has something of Deanna's that Lauren had never had herself -- she can _give_ Deanna something Lauren could never give.

Sometimes, usually when she's lying on Deanna's couch, drowsy with sleep, she imagines Michelle and Deanna together; Deanna pushing her roughly against the wall, kissing her; the two of them falling into bed together, clothes scattered haphazardly on the floor; Michelle's hand dipping between Deanna's thighs, while the brunette whimpers and clutches at the sheets. It's a times like this that she slips her own hand down between the flimsy material of her pajama pants and cotton underwear, fingers working until she gasps and bites down on her hand to keep from crying out.

It always makes her feel dirty afterwards, when her breathing has returned to normal and her heart has stopped racing; she's not supposed to be thinking these kind of things about Deanna. It doesn't help that all she can think about is how both Adamo _and_ Deanna turned out to be gay, just like their characters. And she doesn't need a verbal accusation, doesn't need to have someone ask her if she's like Paige, because the proof is right there, the wetness on her fingers and between her legs. Boyfriend or no boyfriend, Lauren is more like Paige than she'd ever care to admit, to herself or anyone else.

\- - - - -

It's two o'clock in the morning.

Deanna still isn't back yet and Lauren can't help but be at least a tiny bit worried. But Deanna's twenty-two, and she can handle herself. After all, she has been living in LA longer than Lauren, and she knows the city a lot better than the blond; the thought is comforting. She doubts that Deanna is any trouble. Besides, for all she knows, Deanna is with Michelle, in which case, she won't be home until the morning anyway.

As if on cue, she hears shuffling outside Deanna's apartment door, hears the jingling of keys, the soft click as the door is unlocked and pushed open; Deanna's home. She closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep, feeling a bit embarrassed for staying awake and waiting for Deanna to come back. She listens as Deanna moves about the apartment, the quiet shuffling of feet on the carpeted floor. She hears Deanna sigh and then nothing. Then suddenly she hears Deanna moving over towards her, and she has to force herself to keep her breathing even, shallow. And then there's the sound of Deanna chuckling, the sound low and smooth. _She must be looking at me,_ Lauren thinks, imagining herself spread out on the couch, blanket half off, hair mussed.

She can feel Deanna's eyes on her, and she has to remind herself that she's pretending to be asleep and to not move. And then there's a slight rustle of clothes and suddenly she can feel warm breath against her cheek, right before Deanna presses her lips lightly against her own. The action is slight, quick.

It's over before it's even begun; Lauren can feel Deanna pull away quickly, before she even has a chance to react.

Lauren listens as Deanna leaves, waits to hear the click of Deanna's bedroom door closing before she opens her eyes, fingers flying to her mouth and tracing her lips. She remembers the lightness of Deanna's against her own and flushes. She sits up, running a shaky hand through her hair. She's barely even beginning to process what has just happened. Deanna just _kissed_ her; her mind is racing, trying to make sense of this fact. Her first thought is that she can never, ever tell anyone.

Her second is that she thinks she finally gets, for real this time, what Deanna was saying, when she said that she was just like Alex.

\- - - - -

Deanna answers her phone on the second ring.

"Hi, it's me," Lauren says. "Can you buzz me in?"

Five minutes later, she's in Deanna's apartment, arms crossed, standing by the window. Deanna's sitting on a stool in the kitchen, resting her head against the kitchen counter. Michelle's not there, even though it's Tuesday night; Lauren notes her absence, pleased. She can't bring herself to turn around, however, she can't bring herself to face Deanna. It seems that neither of them can break the awkward silence that's fallen over them though, since Deanna doesn't say a word, just drums her fingers on the counter and sighs.

"Hey, you know, I'm leaving in a few days," Lauren says, finally forcing herself to speak. "We should do something before I go."

Deanna sighs again. Lauren can hear the scrape of the chair on the kitchen tile; Deanna comes beside her quickly, silently, wrapping her arms around Lauren's waist and resting her head on her shoulder. Lauren watches Deanna watch her, their reflections soft against the night sky outside the window. Lauren rests her hand against the glass; it's cool to her touch. Comforting. It's in stark contrast to Deanna's warm breath against her neck, which makes her want to shiver and lean back against her. It's a strange sort of feeling that makes Lauren want to pull away, afraid.

"I don't want you to leave," Deanna says, after what feels like the longest time. Her lips are pressed against Lauren's head, muffling her words. Lauren can feel her lips move as she speaks, and she thinks that she wants to run her fingers along Deanna's lips and trace the outline of them.

"I'm sorry," Lauren says. "I wish I didn't have to."

She wants to bring up the kiss.

She's a coward though, just like Paige, and she can't force herself to bring up the subject no matter how hard she tries. She's not sure if it would help to talk about it or if it would just hurt things between them, but she needs to talk about it. She's yet to breathe a word about it to anyone; she hasn't told Adamo, she hasn't told Stacey. She's not afraid to -- that's a lie, she so is -- she just can't bring herself to mention it. It seems inappropriate, like telling people someone else's secret or laughing at someone when they trip over an outstretched foot while walking up to the chalkboard to answer a problem in class.

Lauren pulls away; Deanna lets her go.

It's always like this.

\- - - - -

"I think I know what you mean now," Lauren says softly. "You know, about becoming your character."

"Oh?" Deanna says. Her response is delayed, hesitant.

"Yeah," Lauren says, avoiding her eyes.

She plays with her knife, scratching her knuckles with it. They're sitting in a restaurant a few blocks from Lauren's apartment, waiting for their appetizers to arrive. They're in a booth; Deanna's on one side, Lauren and Adamo are on the other. Lauren is careful when she moves her feet. She doesn't want them to accidentally touch Deanna's or to brush against the bare skin of Deanna's leg when Lauren crosses her own.

Adamo comes back from the bathroom.

"Too bad I was missing out on such a lively conversation," he teases with a smile, as Deanna doodles on her napkin with a ballpoint pen and Lauren avoids her gaze by sorting the sugar packets by color, making sure each one is perfectly aligned with the next.

"You need to come back to Toronto and visit us sometime," Adamo says later, through a mouthful of salad drenched in Italian dressing. "The _Degrassi_ set is so boring without you."

Deanna scoffs, taking a bite of her own salad. "Somehow, I doubt that."

"No, really," Lauren speaks up, pushing her soup bowl to the side and meeting Deanna's eyes across the table. "It's just not the same without you."

Deanna shrugs noncommittally. "I'll see what I can do. Anyway, it might be nice, going back and seeing everyone again. That, and my parents have been nagging me to come back and visit them."

"Then it's settled," Adamo says with a huge grin. "You are so coming back for Christmas. You _have_ to. Besides, it's not like you've got anything going on, not with this huge writer's strike. You probably won't be working for a while."

"Hey!" Deanna protests, poking him playfully with her fork, and they all laugh as Adamo falls out of the booth in mock agony, drawing stares from the people sitting around them.

\- - - - -

Lauren is the one to walk Deanna up to her room that night. Adamo waits outside in the cab.

"Well, I'll see you later then," Lauren says, as they stand awkwardly outside Deanna's door.

"Yeah, um. Later." Deanna doesn't move to open her door though, and Lauren stuffs her hands in her pockets.

"I, um." Lauren starts, flustered. She tries again. "I should probably go."

Deanna shifts. Lauren can hear the jingle of keys in her pocket when she does so.

"Yeah. Michelle's coming over tonight anyway, so I should probably." Deanna doesn't finish her sentence, just stares at the ground.

Lauren moves to leave.

Deanna catches her arm and pulls her back.

"Lauren, I -- " she starts to say.

And then Lauren's kissing Deanna, whose lips are soft and smooth and sticky with lip gloss, and she's not even sure how it all came to this. But then Deanna's arms go around her waist and her tongue slips into Lauren's mouth, and all the blond can think about is running a hand through Deanna's long, dark hair and pulling her in closer, pressing their bodies desperately together.

They end just as abruptly as they began, breaking apart, gasping.

"I have to go," Lauren says, sadly.

"I know," Deanna replies, turning her head away.

"I'm sorry," Lauren says, though she's not quite sure what she's apologizing for. "I guess that I really am just like Paige."

"Yeah, I guess you are," Deanna murmurs, and Lauren flinches, hurt.

In the cab, she starts to cry.

Adamo puts her arm around her and asks her what's wrong. Lauren tells him that she's nothing -- she's just suddenly feeling lonely and she doesn't know why. Adamo, trying to be helpful, suggests that she call her boyfriend. Lauren tells him that she will, sniffling and wiping the tears away, trying not to smear her mascara anymore than she already has. But she won't call her boyfriend, because she knows it won't help. Besides that, she just kissed someone else, just kissed her best friend, just kissed _a girl_ , and really, calling her boyfriend would be the worst thing to do right now.

So instead, when she gets back to the apartment, she dials Stacey.

"What's _wrong_?" Stacey asks, answering the phone with a yawn.

"What?" Lauren's confused. "Wait. Why would something be wrong?"

"Because it's midnight on a Monday night. Why the hell else would you be calling?"

Lauren sighs and lays down on her bed, turning down on her cell phone and turning on the speaker. "I think I've become Paige," she says at last.

Stacey yawns again. "Honestly," she groans, sounding irritated. "You've been saying this since Deanna started talking about it two years ago. In fact, since Deanna first brought it up, you haven't been able to stop talking about it. You frequently call me up at all hours of the day to discuss this very subject. It's not like it's a new thing here, sweetie."

"You don't get it, though," Lauren protests, rolling over onto her side, toying with the edge of her pillowcase.

"I understand that it's this mind-blowing concept," Stacey says, not even trying to hide the sarcastic tone in her voice. "But you really need to let it go."

"You're so mean, Stacey," Lauren moans, wishing Stacey was there so she could hit her with a pillow.

The redhead on the other end chuckles. "I'm sorry." Her apology is insincere, but Lauren doesn't care.

An hour later and she's still lying in bed, on her back, staring at the ceiling. It's been approximately one hour and twenty seven minutes since she stood outside Deanna's door and said goodnight. And it's been approximately one hour and twenty _six_ minutes since she grabbed Deanna and kissed her. She can still feel the way Deanna's body felt pressed against hers, the way her hair felt so soft between her fingers. There wasn't a spark when they kissed, not even the tiniest bit of electricity shooting through her. There were no fireworks going off in the background, no orchestra playing a grand symphony. She didn't experience a sudden, life-changing epiphany.

She still hasn't been able to wipe away Deanna's lip gloss completely.

\- - - - -

Deanna elects not see them off at the airport.

Lauren and Adamo share a cab, their luggage piled in the trunk, carry-on bags packed in on the seat between them.

"I'm going to miss LA," Lauren says thoughtfully, after a time.

"Really?" Adamo asks, surprised. "Whatever happened to 'it's too bright, too hectic, I wish it were more like Toronto?'"

Lauren shrugs, looking out the cab window and watching the buildings fly by. The rain splashes against the glass and trickles downward, the steady _thwump_ of the cab's windshield wipers as they swing back and forth remind Lauren of a heartbeat.

"I suppose I just had a change of heart," she says.

Deanna belongs in LA. Lauren belongs in Toronto.

They've always lived on separate worlds. Deanna was always the outsider of the group, the studious one, the serious one. She would be at school writing essays and studying for exams while the rest of them went to parties and breezed through high school and barely worked to take college courses. There was always a kind of distance between them, an intangible sort of distance, a feeling that Lauren could never seem to put into words. The only time she ever felt truly close to Deanna was when they weren't being themselves; it was only when they hid behind their characters that the distance between them seemed to disappear.

That sort of thinking bothers Lauren, makes her uncomfortable. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and Lauren is like Paige, and Lauren likes things to make sense. She likes to be able to lay everything out in her mind, like marking it with tags; _this goes here_ and _this means that_. She likes being able to understand what she's thinking about. And when it comes to Deanna, Lauren likes to think that she knows what's going on between them. But there's what she _knows_ , and then there's what she _feels_ , and she can't seem to separate the two or make any sense of them.

She doesn't think it would help, anyway.


End file.
